Dr. Robert
Keith,
Alabama Cooperative Extension System Nutritionist
and Auburn University Professor of Food and Nutrition
For years, dietary experts -- some with the zeal
reminiscent of Temperance Union Crusaders -- pointed at fat as the root of all
obesity.
As it turned out, cutting the fat did not
prove to be the magic bullet experts hoped it would be.
Millions of people who have diligently
reduced their fat intake are still, well, fat — which has left experts looking
for other possible factors besides fat.
As it turned out, the other
culprit literally turned out to be right under their very noses as they reached
past it every morning for their first cup of hot java —
sugar.
“Everybody’s worried about fat, and they’re pursuing low-fat and
even no-fat diets,” says Dr. Robert Keith, an Alabama Cooperative Extension
System nutritionist. “But researchers began to realize that many people who were
taking fat out of their diets were replacing it with sugar — for example,
cookies that were free of fats but loaded in sugar and calories.”
“The
problem is that with sugar, you’re getting a very large number of calories with
a comparatively small volume of food. And we know that calories do
count.”
“A tablespoon of sugar, for example, contains between 50 and 60
calories but very little else from the standpoint of nutritional content. A
12-ounce nondiet soft drink will have 3 tablespoons of sugar — totaling between
150 and 180 calories with no other nutrients.
That explains why many
experts are now recommending that people limit their sugar intake, though these
recommendations vary depending on who is making them. The World Health
Organization advises restricting sugar consumption to 10 percent of daily
calories, while the National Academy of Sciences advises limiting it to 25
percent.
Those who should be especially careful to limit their intake are
obese, sedentary people, especially those with serious blood lipid problems and
people who have type II (adult-onset) diabetes. A recent study, for example, in
which subjects were fed 28 percent of their calories from sugar during a 10-week
period turned up increases in body weight and blood pressure.
“Obviously,
you don’t need lots of sugar if you already have diabetes,” Keith says. “But
even borderline diabetics who already suffer from some insulin resistance should
limit their intake.”
Unfortunately, reducing this intake isn’t as easy as
it seems.
“You’d be surprised at just how much hidden sugar they put in
some food products,” Keith says.
“Depending on what you typically buy at
the grocery store, you could end up staying well below the World Health
Organization’s recommended 10 percent or vastly exceeding it.”
Canned
pork and beans, ketchup and children’s cereals are products that typically
contain hidden or added sugar. Others that tend to be high in sugar include
table syrup (one of the most concentrated sources of sugar), nondiet soft
drinks, pie fillings and canned fruit in heavy syrup.
Also, it’s
important to remember that the sugar in these products can be listed under
different names on the label, including sucrose, dextrose and corn syrup, he
adds.
Despite the concerns associated with sugar, Keith says it’s
important that people do not throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water.
Sugar, in some cases, serves a very useful purpose,
especially in cases
where parents are trying to interest children in more nutritional
foods.
“Some kids, for example, just won’t eat plain whole-grain cereal,
even though it’s a very nutritious product,” he says. “So, adding a little sugar
to encourage a child to eat it, especially with milk, is a good
thing.”
“Just remember that whole-grain cereals are an exception rather
than a rule as far as children are concerned and that many children’s cereal
products are made up of 50 to 60 percent sugar.”
Also, Keith says, there
usually is no harm in physically active athletes supplementing their diet with
some sugar – especially in cases where their bodies are burning up calories
faster than they
can replace them.
“If an athlete who expends lots
energy consumes 4,000 calories a day, but still needs about 1,000 more calories
to maintain peak performance, there may be a need for some sugar to maintain
this
energy,” he says.
“In most cases, athletes won’t be adversely
affected, simply because they’re burning so many calories.”
Still, that
leaves the millions of Americans who are sedentary and overweight – the sorts of
people who, because of their sedentary lifestyles, require only about 2,500
calories a day and for whom limiting dietary sugar should be a major health
consideration.
“If you need only about 2,500 calories a day and 800 of
these come from sugar, you’re left with only a small pool of calories from which
to derive the nutrients you’ll need to stay healthy. Consuming a concentrated
source of calories makes it much easier to exceed your daily caloric needs and
contributes to weight gain.”
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